If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

I've just been looking at this. According to the major equipment suppliers, if you recover the energy from 4 to 4.5 % evaporation, you can preheat the wort from the lauter tun from about 75 C to 92 to 94, dependent upon plant efficiency. If you work out the cost of all the pumps, tanks, heat exchangers, maintenance, space etc, you will probably find the figures don't add up.

You can also reduce energy consumption by installing vapour recompression plants, but this definitely won't pay for a micro

If you recover the energy from the hot wort on transfer to the FV, you should get about 1.1 hl hot water at circ 85 C for every hl wort you chill down, dependant upon the cold water temperature and the cols wort out temperature. This is probably worth saving because you can use the water for mashing in, sparging, and CIP

Thanks Dick but I am not thinking micro as you are right for the capital employed money would not be returned.

The real heart of the matter is using between 6 and 12 hL of water to make a hL of beer and burning up a couple of tonne's of coal is not environmentally sustainable in the long term.

So if I can utilise solar, bio gas, heat recovery and water treatment strategies to become a little bit more enviro friendly I will. But before I can do this I was wondering if anyone can verify that Kunze's figures are grounded in reality(I realise it is also very brewery dependant), so I can aspire to become a little bit nicer to mother earth, so I can have a beer on the polar ice caps whilst watching a David Attenborough documentary about the rainforests.

if you send me a message with your email address, i can send you an excel spreadsheet that has formulas for industry averages for utility usages. it is extracted from an artical in "The Brewer International" in Oct 2003.

basic story is, smaller the brewery, higher the use. the figures it gives me (assuming 1000HL production) is

16.6 kWh/HL for electricity
205.7 MJ/HL for heat
10.6 HL/HL for water

overall, the ranges in Kunze should be fairly accurate, but I would use the higher-end of the range if your operation is small.

as an alternative, you can also check this website out: http://www.soundbrew.com/ , they have some general info on micro brewing projects with utility usages.

Thank you for caring about energy usage beyond just money. An easy energy savings is to run the hot refrigerant from your compressors into water you will heat up (like copper tubing in a hot liquor tank) before returning it to the fan unit on your compressor. The compressor will push it there and back. A little bit more copper, a bit more refrigerant, and you keep the heat you've already made.

Heat recovery coils

We install many vented coaxial heat exchangers that use the high temp discharge refrigerant to heat water on winery and dairies applications, but haven't sold to many breweries. I think the main reason these are not so common on brewery systems is the fact that was pointed out earlier in this thread, that many breweries will heat this water pretty efficiently via the counter flow Wort heat exchanger.

These coils need to be "vented" if you are heating potable water. The vented heat exchanger has a buffer between the refrigerant and water. If you develop a leak in one section, it will leak into the buffer or vented section, and not cross contaminate. We are actually able to recover about 50% of the heat that is normally rejected to the outside air, pretty significant.

There are some things you need to be careful of regarding the installation of these coils, such as; refrigerant oil return, pressure drop, relief valves, etc. If not calculated in, could cause harm to your refrigeration system.

if you send me a message with your email address, i can send you an excel spreadsheet that has formulas for industry averages for utility usages. it is extracted from an artical in "The Brewer International" in Oct 2003.

basic story is, smaller the brewery, higher the use. the figures it gives me (assuming 1000HL production) is

16.6 kWh/HL for electricity
205.7 MJ/HL for heat
10.6 HL/HL for water

overall, the ranges in Kunze should be fairly accurate, but I would use the higher-end of the range if your operation is small.

as an alternative, you can also check this website out: http://www.soundbrew.com/ , they have some general info on micro brewing projects with utility usages.